The Leadership Team of Baptist Women in Ministry is proud to share good news that our executive director, Pam Durso, has been named as the next president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas.
For nearly eleven years, Pam has served BWIM well. On July 1, 2009, when she began this work, the organization had a small budget, no programs, and limited supporters and encouragers. She took what was available, created programs that mattered to women ministers, and planned events that would attract new participants. Slowly but steadily, she expanded fundraising efforts and grew the annual budget, increasing it by 300 percent in ten years.
As our leader, Pam has invested time in establishing wide and deep networks among Baptists across denominational divides, inviting women from any and all Baptist backgrounds to participate in our programs and events, which has created even greater diversity among those who participate and support our work. She has used her voice as an advocate for women ministers, calling on Baptist churches to re-imagine their futures, to re-think their leadership, and to re-create their identities. Pam has assisted congregations, organizations, ministers, and leaders as they have moved forward in embracing more creative, entrepreneurial ways of living out and sharing the gospel.
In the past four years, she has also been a vocal leader in Baptist circles on the issue of clergy sexual abuse. In 2016, Pam initiated the founding of a Task Force co-sponsored by BWIM and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship that has spoken directly to the issue and produced congregational educational and prevention resources at a critical time.
In 2018, Pam wrote a Thriving in Ministry proposal, which resulted in a grant of more than $450,000 from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. to support BWIM’s Mentoring Group Program. This program had its official beginning in 2017, and in the last four years, 80 Baptist women in their first three years of ministers or in a ministry new to them have benefited from their participation in a peer group led by a seasoned minister. Pam considers the creation and growth of the Mentoring Program as one of her greatest accomplishments as executive director.
As she prepares for a new season of ministry, Pam offered these reflections: “My work as executive director has been a gift of grace in my life, and I am grateful beyond words for the opportunity to lead and shape this organization and to love and be loved by so many supporters and encouragers of BWIM. In these last months as I have paid close attention to the movement of the Spirit in my own life, I discovered that God was calling me to something new, something unexpected. My heart is filled with excitement as I move toward the opportunity ahead at Central, and yet as I make this transition, my heart is filled with deep sadness at the thought of leaving BWIM. My time with BWIM has been joy-filled. Truly I have been blessed every day to serve in what has been for me the best job in the world.”
Pam’s last working day with Baptist Women in Ministry will be May 1, 2020, and her last official day will be June 24, when she will lead worship at the Annual Gathering to be held at Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. A light breakfast will be served at 8:30 a.m. followed by a worship service at 10:00 a.m. Please join us on that day to honor Pam’s leadership and service.
The Leadership Team is now at work on planning BWIM’s next season. They have elected a search committee including Courtney Allen Crump (chair), Anyra Cano, Taryn Deaton, Daniel Glaze, Ossie McKinney, Kristen Muse, and Micah Pritchett. They anticipate the search process for a new executive director will open by March 21.
Leadership Team member and search committee chair, Courtney Allen Crump said, “It is hard for many of us to think of Baptist Women in Ministry without thinking simultaneously of Pam Durso. She is a cultivator of gifts and convener of graces, and we give thanks for her transformational leadership over the last eleven years. Just as Pam has invited many in Baptist life to reimagine their futures, we now have an opportunity to reimagine the next season of leadership at BWIM so that the landscape for Baptist women ministers and the congregations and communities they serve will continue to be transformed for the good of God’s world.”